About

Rachel Iseman (she/her) is the Head of Finance at Fondation CHANEL, a global corporate foundation dedicated to improving the economic and social conditions of women and girls. She has been with the foundation for over seven years. Rachel began her career as an investment banking analyst with UBS, moving next to roles in global business development and finance at Ralph Lauren. She has a Bachelors of Arts (Honors) in Economics from Boston College with concentrations in Finance and Marketing. She lives in London and enjoys spending time with loved ones in Michigan, NYC, and Dublin.

How has your lived experience informed your practice in fashion?
I navigate the world with a neuromuscular condition that manifests visibly. During the earlier half of my life, this meant I walked with an unsteady gait and fatigued easily. Now in the more recent half, I rely entirely on a mobility scooter for most mobility.

People make a lot of assumptions about who I am, what I do or don’t do, and what I am into on the basis of my disability alone. My personal style gives me the chance to reclaim this narrative and share a point of view that is uniquely my own and not constrained to one way of being. Through my fashion choices, I embrace the freedom of opportunity to assert playfulness, elegance, and boldness, among others, as they come to me.

Headshot image description:
The image shows Rachel Iseman, a white woman with long, wavy brown hair accented by blonde highlights, from her shoulders upwards. She is silhouetted against a light grey background. Her head is slightly tilted to the viewer’s left, and she is smiling brightly. Rachel wears a long-sleeved bordeaux colored cashmere sweater with a round neckline and no collar. On top of the sweater, she wears a silver and gold toned necklace with a round pendant.

Sugandha Gupta is the Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice at ParsonsSchool of Design. She creates multi-sensory textiles that engage audiences through their senses. Her research interests are at the intersections of social, environmental, and disability justice. Gupta also advocates for disabilities at museums, conferences, and universities. She is an established artist and designer with over 15 years of experience. Her work has been showcased at the American Crafts Council Show, Smithsonian Craft Show, Hunterdon Art Museum, NYTM, The United Nations Headquarters, and The Met. She has won prestigious awards such as, DorthyWaxman Textile prize, CFDA Design Graduate, and International Design Award.

Degrees Held
MFA Fibers, Savannah College of Art and Design
Des. Textile Design, National Institute of Design

How has your lived experience informed your practice in fashion?
I am a textile designer, artist, educator and disability advocate living at intersections of identity, disability, ethnicity and immigration. My lived experiences have fueled my practice both as a creative person and an educator. Having had no access to accommodations throughout my student career, and living as an outsider in all spaces I inhabit, I have had to carve my own path to gaining access in education and navigating the world. This helped as a person to grow into being more humble, empathetic and compassionate, and also as an artist to think about access in design through alternate ways of learning and creating my own tools to break access barriers.

Sky is a nonbinary disabled Filipinx neuroqueer from Chicago, IL. Xey are the creator of Rebirth Garments, an activewear line for trans and queer disabled people of all sizes and ages, which started in summer 2014. Sky is the editor of the Radical Visibility Zine, a full color cut and paste style zine that celebrates disabled queer life, with an emphasis on joy. Sky has most recently been working on a free online queercrip DIY teen fashion program with Chicago Public Library called Radical Fit. Named Chicago Tribune’s 2018 Chicagoan of the Year.

How has your lived experience informed your practice in fashion?
Growing up as a radically visible neurodivergent/ mad person, I always had sensory issues with seams in my socks and underwear. In high school I started to explore my gender identity, but did not have access to gender affirming undergarments as a person under 18/ without digital money. When I was 21, I developed a stomach disability (recently figured out tied to PCOS), and could no longer wear what I call “hard pants” (jeans/ non stretch) due to pain. I took these collective experiences and decided to make a custom made to measure clothing line that celebrated all my/ my clients identities while tending to our accessibility needs, and aesthetic preferences. In December 2019, I gained Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after having Epstein Barr. I no longer can physically produce the way I had in the past, so I pivoted to teaching youth how to create their own intersectional clothing lines.

Headshot Image description
Photo by Colectivo Multipolar. Sky Cubacub, a small tan Filipinx Xenogender person wearing their signature pink/ multicolor scalemaille headpiece and handpiece and an all pink look including a ¾ turtleneck crop with a circular cut-out in the middle of the chest over a sheer bralette that also has cut outs with sheer cargo pants and metamaille chains on the hip with a plastic blue eye visor. They have pink grid graphic makeup with asymmetrical lips and spiky triangle under eye makeup. They are holding their zine: “Radical Visibility: a QueerCrip Dress Reform Movement Manifesto” open in one hand and tilting their visor in their other hand while sticking out their tongue. Cover photos on the zine by Grace DuVal of Sky, Alice Wong of the Disability Visibility Project and Nina Litoff.

Aaron Rose Philip, a trailblazing model hailing from The Bronx and Antigua and Barbuda, defies limitations in both the fashion industry and society. Discovered through social media, Aaron Rose quickly realized the glaring lack of representation for trans women of color with disabilities. Represented by Community New York, she has become a catalyst for change, fearlessly advocating for inclusivity. Her relentless pursuit of diversity and inclusion has led to editorial features in prestigious publications like Vogue, i-D, and Dazed. The New York Times celebrated her as a symbol of a more diverse industry. Aaron Rose graced the covers of renowned magazines, including PAPER, S moda for El Pais, and British Vogue, cementing her status as a fashion icon. Beyond modeling, Aaron Rose starred in impactful campaigns for Sephora and Dove, supporting LGBTQIA+ rights. Her music video appearance in Miley Cyrus’ “Mother’s Daughter” garnered over 100 million views. Aaron Rose’s collaboration with Moschino made history. With an ever-rising career and a commitment to change, Aaron Rose Philip paves the way for a more inclusive and diverse fashion world, inspiring others to follow in her footsteps.

How has your lived experience informed your practice in fashion?
My lived experience has informed my practice in fashion being that I have devoted my career to improving the levels of recognition & equity of disabled and or Black trans talent across the fashion industry – consistently advocating that the innate worth of these talents is recognized, utilized as much as the white and able-bodied counterparts that we share space with, and properly accommodated to & compensated for our labor.

Headshot Image Description:
Aaron Rose Philip wearing a Calvin Klein black bralette and unbuttoned dark denim jeans.

Ben Barry (he/him) is Dean and Associate Professor of Equity and Inclusion in the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design. Named to The Vogue Business inaugural “100 Innovators” list, he is working with his colleagues and students to create a fashion curriculum and culture where access, decolonization and justice are the standard. His teaching and research center acknowledges bodies that have been misrepresented and marginalized by the fashion industry. His current project, Cripping Masculinity, explores the fashion experiences of D/disabled, D/deaf and neurodivergent men and masculine people by engaging them in interviews about their clothing, fashion design workshops, and the collaborative creation of fashion exhibitions and fashion shows.

How has your lived experience informed your practice in fashion?
Coming into disability community helped shift how I understand my experience as a disabled person and my work in fashion. Through meeting other disabled artists and designers and engaging with their work, I have learned to value my disability experience as a source of wisdom and creativity as an educator, designer-researcher and Dean. I aim to teach, design and lead from a place where access is the starting point and opening for creative possibility, while also recognizing that access to the existing world isn’t enough – I want to help create access to a more inclusive and just world. As a white, thin, cis gender man with a disability I can mask, I can easily enter spaces, be heard, and be hired into leadership roles. I am committed to using my body as a vessel to redistribute opportunities and power in fashion for others without my privileges.

Headshot Image Description:
This is a headshot of Ben — a white, Disabled, cis gender man with low vision. He has short brown hair and he is wearing a shirt made up of different pieces of patterned fabric that have been sewn together. His head is tilted to the left and resting on his hand, and his brown eyes look into the camera.

Andraéa LaVant is a nationally and internationally sought-after disability inclusion expert. She is widely recognized for spearheading a global disability justice movement as impact producer for Netflix’s Oscar-nominated film, Crip Camp, executive produced by President Barack and Mrs. Michelle Obama. Andraéa is founder and president of LaVant Consulting, Inc. (LCI), a social impact communications firm that offers cutting-edge corporate development and content marketing for brands and nonprofits. LCI’s specialty is helping brands “speak disability with confidence.” Her work has been featured on Good Morning America, NBC, Essence.com, the Root, Paper Magazine, and a host of other national media. As a black, disabled woman, Andraéa champions intersectionality and is committed to working toward a future where ALL people, particularly disabled people of color, are seen and valued in culture and society at-large.

How has your lived experience informed your practice in fashion?
As a physically disabled woman, fashion has been both a consistent point of joy and of frustration throughout my life. While I adore opportunities to express myself through fashion, this has historically been overshadowed by the lack of access to stylish clothes that fit my needs as a curvy wheelchair user. Thus, I’ve made it a personal mission to creatively demonstrate and champion designs that are aesthetically beautiful and functional for all body types. My ultimate hope is for a world that will embrace all facets of me – a black, disabled, queer woman – and reflect them throughout the fashion and entertainment industries.

Headshot Image Description:
Smiling African-American woman wearing peach clear tinted cat-eye glasses. She is wearing a black dress with white and peach flowers on it and red lipstick. Her hair is shoulder length natural curls. Although not depicted, she’s a power wheelchair user.

Sinéad Burke is a Disabled educator, advocate and author who champions accessibility, equity and social justice to build a better world for everyone. In 2020, she founded the accessibility consultancy Tilting the Lens on the three pillars of education, advocacy and design. Advising major global brands including Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Netflix, Pinterest and Starbucks, Tilting the Lens guides clients in their move from awareness to action by creating more accessible practices, policies, products and services, places and promotions.

Sinéad serves on Gucci’s Global Equity Board, ITV’s Cultural Advisory Council, the Irish President’s Council of State and Ireland’s Future of Media Commission.

Sinéad’s work has been featured and recognised by Vogue, The Financial Times, Fast Company, WWD, Vanity Fair, The Business of Fashion, The Guardian and many more. In 2017, she delivered a powerful TED Talk on ‘Why design should include everyone.’ Her children’s book, ‘Break the Mould,’ is a primer on how to take your place in the world – with lessons for all. It won the ‘An Post Irish Book Award’ in 2020.

Additionally, on 20 April 2023, with close collaboration from Tilting the Lens, British Vogue launched ‘Reframing Fashion’: a portfolio edition highlighting Disability justice, accessibility, equity, intersectionality and pride, with Sinéad Burke as Consultant Editor. The issue featured 19 disabled people from fashion, sport, activism and the arts, and in a historic first for the magazine – and in a rare event for magazine publishing – the May 2023 edition was made available in a Braille and audio version, making the magazine more accessible to many.

Headshot Image Description:
Sinéad, a white, Queer, physically Disabled woman with brown shoulder-length hair poses against a dusty lavender backdrop. Standing facing the camera with one hand in her jacket pocket, Sinéad is wearing a black blazer, black slacks, black kitten heel shoes, and a nameplate gold necklace.